The 10 Best & 10 Worst Summer Blockbusters of 2014

According to our almanac, summer 2014 doesn’t end until September 22 (at 10:29pm EDT, if you really want the specifics). But this is Hollywood. We make our own rules. To us, the summer blockbuster season begins on the first weekend in May and is officially over on Labor Day weekend, at which time all the studios dumping as much crap as possible into September, making room for holiday weekend wide releases and art house fare to hype during Oscar Season. That means that, as far as movie lovers are concerned, summer is officially over and it’s time to take stock of what the heck just happened.

By anyone’s estimation, the 2014 summer blockbusters were kind of a lame bunch. We had some highlights but several of the most hyped movies of the year turned out to be real turkeys, and even some of the really good ones tanked at the box office due to overcrowded multiplexes full of tentpole releases and not enough people to fill each tent. We saw franchises rise (Guardians of the Galaxy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and we saw franchises fall (The Amazing Spider-Man 2, The Expendables 3). We saw apes on horseback dual-wielding machine guns and we saw Tom Cruise die hundreds of times. We had some fun, but compared to years past when imaginations were set on fire and whole new generations of movielovers were treated to unforgettable events the likes of which the world of entertainment has never seen… yeah, the blockbusters were a bit of a letdown.

Related: The Ten Best Indie Films of Summer 2014

But we still had plenty of great summer blockbusters this season, peppered into marketplace otherwise filled with crap. So let’s take a look at both sides of the equation, with this, our picks for The 10 Best (and 10 Worst) Summer Blockbusters of 2014. Some of these films impressed us more and more as the months went by. Others got worse and worse. Some were intended to be a big deal but failed to attract a proper audience. Some were a big deal but had absolutely no right to be.  

Slideshow: The 10 Best (and 10 Worst) Summer Blockbusters of 2014


William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.

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